Sean's Russia Blog

William Taubman is the Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Amherst College. He’s the author of many books, most notably of Khrushchev: The Man and His Era which won a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His new book is Gorbachev: His Life and Times is published by Norton. For more on Taubman’s work visit williamtaubmanbooks.com.

Michael Kofman is Research Scientist at CNA Corporation and Fellow at the Kennan Institute where he specializes in security and defense in Eurasia. He comments widely on Russian military affairs and foreign policy. He also blogs on the Russian military at his site Russian Military Analysis. You can also find a list of his many recent publications there as well.

You can listen to my previous interview with Michael Kofman on hybrid warfare here.

George F. Kennan taking the oath of office as Ambassador to the U.S.S.R. in April 1952, with his wife Annelise and daughter Grace looking on.

Guest:

Grace Kennan Warnecke has had a lifelong personal and professional association with Russia. She’s served on the boards of the National Advisory Council, Harriman Institute, at Columbia University, as well as a member of the Advisory Council of the Kennan Institute. She served as country director for Winrock International in Kyiv, Ukraine, from 1999 to 2013. The former president of SOVUS Business Consultants, she was also the founder and project supervisor of the Volkhov International Small Business Incubator in Russia and executive vice president of the Alliance of American and Russian Women among many more initiatives and projects. She currently serves as Chairman of the Board of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.

If that wasn’t enough Grace is also the daughter of George F. Kennan, perhaps the most influential American diplomat of the 20th century. Grace’s memoir, Daughter of the Cold War, will be published by Pittsburgh University Press in Spring 2018.

Jessica Mason is a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow and Federal Policy Analyst at the National Partnership for Women & Families and Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research and policy work address vulnerable social groups seeking greater legal protections and social recognition, particularly in relation to gender, sexuality, and national belonging in Russia and the United States. She’s the author of “Wake up, Russia! Political Activism and the Reanimation of Agency,” published in the October 2016 issue of Anthropology Today.

Brendan McGeever is Lecturer in the Sociology of Racialization and Antisemitism in the Department of Psychosocial Studies at the University of London, Birkbeck. He’s the author of several articles exploring antisemitism, racism, revolution and the socialist movements. His most recent article is “The Bolsheviks and Antisemitism” in Jacobin. His book The Bolsheviks and Antisemitism in the Russian Revolution will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2018.

Maxim Trudolubov is a Senior Fellow at the Kennan Institute and the Editor-at-Large of Vedomosti, one of Russia’s most important dailies. He was the editorial page editor of Vedomosti between 2003 and 2015 and has been a contributing opinion writer for The International New York Times since the fall of 2013. Maxim also writes The Russia File blog for the Kennan Institute. Maxim is the co-author of the Roots of Russia’s War in Ukraine. His new book The Tragedy of Property: Private Life, Ownership and the Russian State will be out soon.